Buddy's Blog

Then we went to Lucca which is an old walled city near Pisa. We stayed in a very nice B&B which had AC. It was awfully hot, just as in Lecco.

Puccini was bornin Lucca. His family home is a museum:

Even some postcards:

That shot was taken from the wall which encircled the city. It’s wide enough to drive on.

Lots of churches…

On our last day in Lecco we took a long walk down along the river that drains Lake Como. This is Chiesa Parrocchiale dei Santa Materno e Lucia e Convento dei Cappuccini. It was built as a Capucian monastery in 1576. The inside is very cool:

The altar is beautiful. The little figures in the glass cases depict events in the life of Christ.

Along the river is a lovely park

I’m running late today and we have folks coming over, so, and I’m sure you’re devastated, no pictures from Italy today.

Hey, Summer’s not over for Ernie yet…

The City of Como lies at the bottom of the western branch of the lake. It’s much larger than Lecco, and also a tourist hot spot.

This was the Saturday replacement for the one I posted yesterday. That one was going nowhere.

As I said yesterday, Bellagio (not the casino in Las Vegas) is at the tip of the Lake Como Peninsula. It’s possible to drive there, but parking would be a problem. We took the ferry from Lecco which, if I recall correctly was a 45 minute ride, stopping at several towns along the way. Bellagio is a small town, and there were easily 2000 tourists there. It’s on a steep slope and the streets, if you could call them that, are very narrow. It’s a picturesque town to say the least. We had a fabulous open air lunch in Ristorante Bilacus under their trellis. The fish was perfect. Mind you there isn’t much AC in Italy. I bought a nice Italian shirt and silk tie in a little men’s shop across the lane. Here’s Bellagio:

I didn’t publish that one. First, it wasn’t funny, and second, it kind of a dead end. Tomorrow I’ll post it’s replacement.

One day while in Lecco we took the passenger ferry to Bellagio, which is at the tip of the Lake Como Peninsula. The lakeside villages along the way are quite picturesque.

Tomorrow I’ll post photos from Bellagio.

This just in from my old friend, Fred.

Coilico is at the northern tip of Lake Como. One great thing about Italy and most of Europe is that you can get almost anywhere on the train. Like we did to Colico.

Lecco is on the Eastern branch of Lake Come. We were there ten days. It’s beautiful. But the temps were in the mid 90’s and humid. And most of the restaurants don’t have AC. This shot was right around the corner from our little apartment. Lots of open air restaurants.

Next shot is looking across the lake to the other shore.

Part of the ancient wall…

View out our window:

I got yesterday’s photos wrong. Some of them were taken in Falmouth, England. It’s a nice harbor town. On the main street there were ten thrift shops. Frau Grace went a little nutz.

That last shot is an old fort that guarded the entrance to the harbor.

This is the small city of Stornoway in the northern tip of the Hebrides: